


And Save Me From The Dark

by LadyShadowphyre



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon Is Stupid So I've Elected To Ignore It, Dean Winchester (brief cameo), Episode: s14e19 Jack in the Box, Gen, Sam Winchester is Jack Kline's Parent, Soul Shenanigans, The Author Regrets Nothing, castiel (mentioned) - Freeform, episode coda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-10
Updated: 2019-10-10
Packaged: 2020-11-28 20:49:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20972840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyShadowphyre/pseuds/LadyShadowphyre
Summary: Dean says Jack is past saving and out of control, needs to be stopped at all costs. Sam isn't ready to give up on his son.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Zetal (Rodinia)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rodinia/gifts).

> I got mad at canon, so I wrote this. Only getting around to posting it now, which is pretty last-minute considering the new season starts in less than twenty-four hours. ^^U

**T**HE BOX WOULD not hold Jack forever. Sam doubted that a box meant to contain an Archangel even could contain a being whose power was on a level with God. He stood between Jack and Dean, spoke the lies that needed to be spoken, stumbled over the lies that Dean insisted had to be spoken. He bore witness to Jack entering the Ma'lak box, bore witness to Dean closing the lid and latching it, and he prayed. He prayed to Castiel, telling him everything. He prayed to Jack, knowing the child would hear him, praying that his plan, the plan not even Dean knew about, would work. He prayed to Chuck, for the first time in over three years, that it would be enough.

Dean left the room. He tried to get Sam to leave, too, but Sam waved him off. He couldn’t look at Dean, and Dean refused to look back at the box where Jack lay, silent for the moment. When Dean finally left the room, Sam waited… and closed the door behind him.

The box was decently made, for being crafted by a mechanic’s son more at home holding a sawed-off shotgun than a blowtorch or dremel. Dean had copied the symbols faithfully, but Sam could _read_ them, knew which circles and symbols were for what purpose, and how to activate them. He knew how to change them. Dean hadn’t even noticed the two mirrored glyphs he had added to the box lid.

_I’m climbing up on the lid now, Jack,_ Sam thought hard, kneeling on the metal surface and leaning forward to touch both glyphs, the first two fingers of each hand covering the sigils barely bigger than a quarter. _Try to relax, okay?_

He heard no response, but then Sam didn’t need to. Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, Sam let his eyes slide shut, focussed inward, and _Reached_. It was there inside of himself, that well of tattered filaments of light repeatedly shredded and imperfectly stitched together with gold and stained here and there with ink-black pitch, all that was left of Sam’s own soul after thirty-five years of being Heaven and Hell’s chew toy. He hated to look upon it most days, seeing the pitch of Hell’s taint and the uneven golden stitches that marked Castiel’s determined efforts to try and mend the damage rendered by his brothers. It was easier, so much easier, to hide it away inside him where he couldn’t see it, couldn’t feel it… unless he needed to.

He needed to now.

At his mental prodding, one tiny, silken thread unwound itself from the knot and allowed him to tug it up. It split into two, one going to the leftmost sigil, the other going to the right, and Sam focussed on those sigils, on the balance and the interlocking parts, the parts that meant nothing alone but together became a lock, a tiny little hatch those two tiny threads could slip through and make their way inside to Jack.

The box shuddered under Sam and he grit his teeth. _Easy there,_ he thought desperately. _It’s just me… it’s okay, Jack, just stay calm, buddy…._

It felt like weaving in the dark without moving his hands. He could See the threads, could just barely see through the tiny keyhole he had opened in the box to the burning golden orb of Grace that nearly occluded the tiny spark of soul that Sam had known was still there. He fed that spark now, winding those threads around it in knots and loops meant to protect and support rather than confine, adding pockets for it to expand into. The box shuddered harder and Sam’s knees slipped, legs dropping to either side of the box to hold on as best he could while feeding more and more of the soul threads in through the keyhole.

_“Sam!”_ Jack’s voice was muffled, barely audible through the metal of the box and the roaring in his ears. _“Sam, stop! It’s too much, you can’t give me so much!”_

_I can,_ he thought back, shoulders hunching against the ripping tug inside his chest. _I can… because I love you, Jack._

The box lurched once, hard, as Jack screamed, _“Why?!”_

_Do I need a reason to love you? I may not be your father, not by blood or Grace, but you are my son._

_“I love you,”_ the child whimpered, cried as the box shuddered and clanged from the force of his fists beating against the lid, trying to get out. _“Please don’t die for me!”_

_That’s not plan A,_ Sam sighed. The ends of the threads came into view and he fed them through the keyhole, slumping over to the side and barely even feeling the pain as he landed on the concrete floor. _Go, now. Punch your way out while the barrier’s still weak!_

The lid of the box exploded. The alarms of the Bunker flared to life, blood red and klaxons shrieking through the halls. Sam felt the brush of trembling fingers against his head before the rush of wings carried his son away before Dean burst in through the door, Castiel on his heels, and Sam let himself be pulled under.

He’d saved his son from his brother, and that was all that mattered now.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for "Value Me" on the ABC Drabbles tumblr prompt list, featuring Jack talking to any/all of his dads.

**D**ARKNESS WAS FAMILIAR to Sam Winchester, somewhere between an ancient enemy and an old friend. He had fought with and against it, accepted and banished it, and even surrendered to it in one form or another for his entire life. He had no fear of it, and felt no pressing urge to leave it now, wrapped within it as he was, warm and quiet and without pain.

_“He’s been like this for days, Cas. You sure you can’t…”_

_“Even if I could use my Grace to wake him, I would not. You and Sam have a bad habit of not allowing yourselves time to heal and rest as you should, and there is no need to wake him immediately.”_

_“But Jack–”_

_“Jack is as Sam hoped to make him. Safe and whole. Dumah has been dealt with and can no longer manipulate him into killing humans to create new angels _ _the way she had been doing.”_

_“But–”_

_“No. To forcibly rouse Sam now would do him more harm than good. Or do you no longer prioritize your brother’s safety and health and happiness above all else?”_

_“…Nothing more important than Sammy.”_

_“Then let him rest.”_

_“….Okay.”_

Sam let himself drift down and away again, floating in the darkness. Jack was safe. Jack was whole. Dean was impatient, but Castiel had him in hand for now. He could rest. They would wake him if he was needed, if the situation became dire, but for now he could take his time to rest, to rebuild himself after unravelling his soul so far that he felt more like a knotted string inside than a proper soul. It would take time to unravel himself again and rewind all the filaments back into cohesion, but he could finally do it. He had time.

_“Sam?”_

Jack!

_“Sam, I… I’m so sorry…”_

No, Jack, you don’t need to be sorry, son….

_“I know you think I don’t need to be sorry, but I do. I am. I… I messed up so much, hurt so many people–”_

You’re still a kid, Jack, you made mistakes and when you found out the truth you wanted to fix it. Nobody with sense could blame you for being manipulated.

_“Dean is back to wanting to kill me again, but he can’t. There’s nothing out there that can.”_

I said nobody with sense, Jack. Dean’s not sensible, not when it comes to people with powers. Too much like Dad.

_“He says he doesn’t want to kill me, but he’s lied to me before. So many people have lied to me, and part of me just wishes everyone would stop lying…but then I remember that I’ve lied, too, and I don’t know what makes some lies hurtful and some lies okay.”_

I wish I could answer that for you, Jack. I grew up being fed lies until I learned to lie right back and sometimes I can’t tell the difference either.

_“Castiel says that it’s hard to tell the difference and that the best way to determine what lies are okay is if the truth would hurt someone more than help, but that’s hard to guess too. Like with my grandparents. It would hurt them to know that my mother is dead, but what if it hurts them more to find out that she’s dead after being told by people that she’s alive?”_

Finding out that your child is dead will hurt no matter when it happens, Jack. In the case of your grandparents, though, they’d want to know what happened to Kelly’s two year old son, probably want to take custody.

_“Castiel said it’s better they think she’s alive so they don’t start asking questions about me. I don’t look like a two year old human, and I don’t think I’d want to live with them anyway, not when I have my fathers.”_

…Fathers?

“I mean… I mean Castiel, of course, but… I also mean you.”

Jack…?

“Do you remember the day I was born? I called you Father, because you were the first person I saw and you felt like the Grace I’d felt before… like Castiel’s Grace. You said you weren’t my father, and I guess at the time that was true… but I think… I think you became my father not long after that. When you protected me, and cared for me… comforted me when I got upset or scared… And you said you care about me. That you love me.”

I do, Jack.

“I love you, too, Sam… Dad. I hope… I don’t know what I’m doing, and I don’t know who I can trust besides you and Castiel, but… I hope one day I can make you proud.”

“…you do…”

“Sam?!”

“Jack…” Sam sighed, dragging his eyes open as he turned his head to look up at his son. “…you do make me proud… every day.”

“Dad!” Tears spilled over Jack’s cheeks and he slumped forwards over the bed and Sam’s chest, shoulders shaking with sobs.

“It’s okay, Jack,” Sam murmured, dragging one weighted hand up to rest on his son’s back. “It’s okay, let it out… It’s all going to be okay.”


End file.
